WASHINGTON, July 19, 2017 / Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

JULY 19: THE HOLE TRUTH

Profile America — Wednesday, July 19th. The first 18-hole golf course in the United States opened this week in 1893 in Downer's Grove, Illinois. The course was an expansion of an existing 9-hole facility. The Chicago Golf Club soon moved to a new course in nearby Wheaton, and the Downer's Grove course has since reverted to 9 holes. The sport arrived on these shores from Scotland, and there is evidence of golfing in the late 18th century in South Carolina and Georgia. Today, over 25 million Americans play the game at least once a year at the 11,280 golf courses and country clubs across the nation. These establishments employ over 295,000 people in the nearly $21 billion per year pursuit of what a frustrated player called "a good walk spoiled." You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Modern Approach to Acquisition of Motor Skills: Dynamic Systems Theory

Previously movement scientists believed that we had motor programs encoded in our brain, and essentially a button would be pressed and out would come a gross motor pattern. This led to the prevailing thought that the expert athlete had less noise when completing movements. Training resulted in what you normally see at any big gym. Static exercise with isolation as ideal and a bodybuilding mentality. Recent research has now shown the expert has more noise when performing a particular task. Essentially they have more degrees of freedom to complete a specific task and more ways of solving a problem. SO… the Dynamic Systems Theory states that there are multiple subsystems that go into movement output. This includes the environment, psychological constraints, anything in the peripheral system, and the list goes on. The old way of thinking was a top down approach. We now know anything can affect the system and the expert has more ways of solving a movement problem depending on which subsystem might be the confounding factor. This leads to the Premier Fitness Systems approach, which includes increasing movement bandwidth, increasing transferability of training and decreasing reliance on specificity of sport specific skills. Why would we want to do that? Because sport by nature is very asymmetrical and leads to imbalances. By training with a Dynamics System Approach in mind we can train the human body to increase resiliency and teach it more ways to solve a motor problem.